*4.2.4.2 Enki/Ea*

*Goats (Capra) - From Ancient to Modern*

documented [21].

temple furniture.

worshipped [18].

it, or eating it, or being covered with it (its blood), or by merely having the animal in proximity to the affected person. The scapegoat ritual was often used by the military and sometimes by cities to remove the scourge of a plague [27].

Animal figurines could be used for scapegoat rituals or as apotropaic figurines that were buried under the floors of domestic dwellings, barracks or temples to ward off evil [21]. Elaborate rituals describing an array of figurines to use (including the goat-fish), and the numbers of figurines that are required, have been

The name 'Enki' literally means Lord, en, of the earth or the netherworld, ki, the patron deity of the apkallus (fish-men), who lived in the underground sweetwaters, the Abzu (Sumerian) or Apsu (Akkadian) [28]. In this imagery, the god Enki/Ea was associated with the 'Sacred tree' (often erroneously called the 'Tree of life'). The Anzu/Apsu was considered, a not altogether unpleasant intermediary place, between the earth and the netherworld (almost literally the place of spring water from which life springs). This idea may be suggested by the imagery of the goat in the tree (as shown in **Figure 9**). This was possibly a libation device, and used as

What is important to note here is that although the goat in the tree represents

a certain idea known to the community (Enki and the Sacred tree), and goat imagery is used in furniture or libation devices, the animals themselves were not

*The lapis-lazulli goat buck in the tree from the Royal Cemetery at Ur, belonging to the Uruk period c 2600–2500 B.C.E. was probably temple furniture—possibly a stand (housed in the British Museum).*

*4.2.4 Group D: goats as figures in cosmic contests and 'performances'*

Two examples of the use of goats in this manner were found.

*4.2.3 Group C: goats as signifiers of specific political/social ideas of human society*

**14**

**Figure 9.**

The myths that incorporate Ea (or Enki) are of particular significance here since the primary sources reveal him to be associated with the goat. The spouse of Ea was Damkina and his cult centre was Eridu. Marduk was Ea's son. During the Kassite

**Figure 10.** *Goddess seated on a goat over two lions from Kultepe, Anatolia, from the Middle Bronze Age, 2000–1595 B.C.E. [37].*

### **Figure 11.**

*Queen of animals feeds her wild goats, thirteenth B.C.E., from tomb III, Minet el-Beida, harbour of Ugarit, Syria. Lid of pyxis (round box with lid) (housed in the Louvre).*

period, Marduk was elevated to the top of the Babylonian pantheon and his cult centre was Babylon [19].

Ea plays a role in several of the Mesopotamian myths. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, where aside from being mentioned as one of the gods that have made Gilgamesh wise, he is the god that breaks rank and warns the human Ut-napishtim (whom Gilgamesh seeks to reveal the secret of eternal life since Ut-napishtim survived the flood and has been made immortal) of the impending flood sent by the gods to destroy man. This role of Enki is again shown in the myth of Atrahasis, the Flood story. Here too, Enki warns man about the flood and gives him instruction to build a boat.

Enki plays a larger role in the Epic of Creation. Here, it is explained, in the beginning, there were only two gods, Apsu (who represents the primordial waters under the earth) and Tiamat (the personification of the sea). They beget four generations of gods, who become noisy and unbearable. Apsu decides to put an end to their troublesome ways, but the plot is discovered by Ea 'who knows everything'. He puts Apsu and his evil vizier, Mummu, to sleep and then slays them. He then assumes the belt, crown and mantle of radiance, takes over the dwelling place of Apsu as his own, and there, with his spouse Damkina, creates Marduk. Marduk then proceeds to win all sorts of fantastic battles with the encouragement of his father, Ea, and is finally made the king of the gods. One of Marduk's actions is to create man (to do the work of the gods so that the gods can be at leisure).

In shorter myths, again Ea plays a role. Mostly as the 'one who knows everything'. These include the myth of Adapa (a priest of Ea in his cult temple at Eridu); the Epic of Anzu; the Descent of Ishtar to the Underworld and the myth of Nergal and Ereshkigal.

The relief and apotropaic figures below (**Figure 12**) depict the god Enki (Sumerian) or Ea (Akkadian). Enki was the god of productivity [31] and freshwater streams, springs and lakes, as well as the abzu (or apsu – the subterranean freshwater ocean on which the earth supposedly floated; [8, 31]) and, in this guise, was symbolized as the (or a) fish [9].

Enki was also associated with wisdom, science, craftsmanship and magic and this part of his nature was symbolised by a goat [9]. Several stone reliefs and cylinder seal impressions were found showing goat bearers, a goat in the scene, or a goat shown below the god with water or fishes also represented.

**17**

**Figure 14.**

*favourable hearing and compliance!' ([32]: Plate V).*

**Figure 13.**

*Goats in the Ancient Near East and Their Relationship with the Mythology, Fairytale…*

This 'dual' nature of the god ultimately resulted in the use of the symbol of the goat-fish (literally 'Carp-goat') for the god Enki or Ea [32] (Akkadian suḫurmašû; Neo-Sumerian Selekuid). Figures of this deity are named in certain apotropaic (averting evil) rituals [21]. Although no Assyrian monumental art of this deity has been found, the requirements for their manufacture (dimensions, gold leaf required etc.) are alluded to in Nimrud texts for a temple of Nabu at Kalhu [32]. Artefacts

The boundary stones each show celestial objects (stars and crescent moons), monuments or temples and deities. On all three boundary stones, the goat-fish (curved or twisted horns and hooves) can be clearly distinguished from the dragon (which is generally depicted with straight horns, talons or claws and a snake-like body).

Similarities between the renditions of goat-fish include one front leg bent back and the other forward (slightly bent and lifted) (although both left leg and right leg forward can be seen), cross-hatchings used to indicate the scales of a fish, twisted splayed horns (except the foundation figurine, which may have had horns that are now broken off). All the boundary stones' goat-fish are without beards (goatees).

*(a–c) Mesopotamian boundary stones of the Kassite era, 1600–1150 B.C.E. [38]. In (a) the goat-fish can be seen* 

*(a) A goat-fish from Assur (housed in the Lowie Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley: [24]: Plate XV). (b) Foundation figurine of a suḫurmašû, from Assur (Of beige sun-dried clay and had an original coating of black wash). On the left side of the figurine is a one-line inscription that reads 'Come in,* 

*on the bottom right, in (b) in the top register, and in (c) in the top register.*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.82531*

representing this deity are shown in **Figures 13**–**15**.

**Figure 12.** *(a) Enki represented as a fish-man in stone relief and (b) as an apotropaic figure (source unknown).*
